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The Volkswagen ('People's car') or Kdf-Wagen was an affordablevehicle for the German working man, part of the energetic 'motorisation'programme widely promoted within the New Germany since 1933. Whatwas known by the initials KdF, indicating Kraft durch Freude ("StrengthThrough Joy"),was an immensestate-controlled leisure organization, partof the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, which was the national German labourorganization at that time. It had been set-up to promote the advantagesof NSDAP National Socialism to the people.The foundation stone for the new motor town developed to build'The People's Car' was laid on May 26, 1938, as the Stadt des KdF-WagensbeiFallersleben, a planned town centred around the village ofFallersleben, built to house workers of the new Volkswagen factories.At the time KdF-Stadt had become the absolute focus of Germanautomotive industry attention as it washome to the newly-instituted'People's Car' factory. Adolf Hitler, himself, presided over the stonelayingceremony, with some 70,000 spectators looking on. The finalthree VW prototypes were displayed, and the first VW convertible wasshown to the Fuhrer. The first date on '377's original Commission sheetis May 24/25, 1938 – immediately before this prestigious ceremony.It appears therefore that the KdF project'sthree top executives (ProfDr Ferdinand Porsche, JakobWerlin andBodoLaffrentz) ordered thecar immediately before Hitler's public blessing of what became theVolkswagenwerke.This car was delivered new in its original Cabriolet B 540Kconfiguration to the Volkswagenwerke HQ at Berlin-Grünewald,Tauberstrasse 4, on June 3,1939. One month later, on July 7, 1939,Hitler was given a riding tour inside the new factory halls in 'an openbodied Mercedes-Benz' - possibly the newly-delivered car embodyingchassis '377' now offered here.After conversion it is evident that '377' was issued not to any individualamongst the Third Reich prominenten – avoiding in some measurethe potential stigma or vilification of such association with what iswidely regarded today as historic criminality. Documents show thenewly re-bodied Aktion P '408377' was registered on January 28,1943, and delivered to the 'Adjutantur d. Führers, Berlin' next day. TheReichskanzellerie Berlin Motor Pool cars would of course have beendeployed on many disparate assignments, to carry in protected mannerany luminary of significant stature.Perhaps inevitably, the progress of the Second World War from 1942-45resulted in the collapse of the Third Reich and Germany's unconditionalsurrender, with the Berlin Motor Pool site and any surviving vehiclesabsorbed by occupying Soviet forces. According to the testimony ofHitler's chauffeur, Erich Kempke, in the early morning hours of April 24,1945, Russian shelling destroyed some 60 vehicles within the Motor Pool.Somehow, perhaps it was absent in use at that moment, '377' survived.To further Soviet automotive research and development – and to feedan understandable appetite for trophy-taking –many hundreds, perhapsthousands, of high-quality and interesting German motor vehicles werecarried off by the Russians, to technical institutes, factories, researchcentres, Ministries and Party factions within the USSR and its newlyconqueredsatellite nations. A photograph does survived showing thisarmoured 540K with a Russian Army registration plate. Its left-sideheadlamp lens is clearly cracked. When the car now offered here was firstacquired by its subsequent Estonian owner, its left-side headlamp lensdisplayed the self-same crack. That same distinctive damage survives tothis day...Some 47 years later, in 1992, an inquisitive westerner visiting the Balticstate of Estonia fell into conversation with some locals about interestingold cars. He was told of one which had been storedfor many years, indismantled condition, on a nearby farm. This Aktion P Mercedes-Benz540K '377' is that car.1 23304 | Goodwood festival of speed